Nonpoint-Source Water Quality Management Under Uncertainty Through an Inexact Double-Sided Chance-Constrained Model

This study proposed an inexact double-hand-side chance-constrained programming (IDCCP) method for nonpoint-source water quality management within an agricultural system. The IDCCP model can express interval parameters and double-hand-side random variables (e.g. nitrogen requirement of crop and nitrogen content of manure) simultaneously. To handle the double-sided random variables, a linear form of sufficient conditions for the IDCCP was deduced and proved. The performance of IDCCP was testified in the water quality management study case at three individual probabilities (theta (i) = 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01), and compared with the corresponding ILP model. The results demonstrated that, the net benefit of the agriculture system decrease with a decreasing violating probability (theta(i) ), an increasing satisfaction of constraint (1-theta(i) ), or a lower risk of the system. Although it is the first application of the IDCCP method to nonpoint-resource water quality management, the IDCCP could also be applied to other environmental issues under such uncertainties.